“It was kind of like Disneyland to me,” says Senior Stanley Krzesniak about his visit to visit the United Technical Operations MRO Center at SFO.
Says Krzesniak about his experience at the MRO Center, “They do engine overhauls there. There were so many engine parts and so much machinery that I would just love to use.”
Krzesniak has been dreaming about aerospace engineering for years. The summer after his junior year, Krzesniak began building a remote-controlled aircraft of his own design.
“The idea of it started my freshman year,” says Krzesniak. “I watched this video on YouTube of a guy flying a remote control plane using video goggles … he could see everything his plane saw, real-time.” Krzesniak had not put his nose to the grindstone until the summer of 2013, when he spent nearly 650 hours at his desk solidifying a plan.
“It matured from something I would fly around school to something that could fly to the stratosphere, 100,000 feet, on solar power,” says Krzesniak, who is now looking into internships with NASA and Boeing.
“What inspired me wasn’t a singular event. It’s been happening all my life, ever since I was [a year old], I’ve flown everywhere. I’ve traveled to 42 states and 19 countries. After all that time, I started thinking; I don’t like just sitting on planes. I want to build a plane or fly a plane.”
Like Krzesniak, other students have begun exploring opportunities working in their fields of choice. Junior Achievement (JA) is a program for high school students that provides the opportunity to experience the creation and development of an actual company. These companies sell a number of products with the aim of making a profit. The final product is then distributed to shareholders when the program ends.
Senior Quinn Bredl began his JA experience with an inclination towards finance, but is now interested in management.
Bredl says. “I like business. I like to work with people and see products being created and ideas come to life.”
Both management and marketing generally involve interpersonal interactions. Senior Julia Murray participated in JA on a marketing team to promote the sales of portable electronic device chargers.
“I would want to work on commercials and magazine spreads,” comments Murray about her possible future in marketing. “I like how you can persuade people to buy your stuff. Sometimes I see something, and I’m like, ‘Yup. They totally persuaded me with that.’ You can create brand recognition.”
JA provides an opportunity to gain experience in business, but is not the only way for students to select and pursue a career path.
Donning a gray FIDM sweatshirt with pink boots to match the color of the lettering, senior Samantha Yick recalls the day she knew she wanted to attend the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM).
Yick visited FIDM in March of her junior year. “It was really fun because I was surrounded by a lot of people who are passionate about the same things and have the all same interests,” says Yick.
“Being at the open house was really exciting, and it confirmed that that was the kind of place I wanted to be in, surrounded by those kinds of people.”
“What I really want to do is set design. It’s like taking ideas from the page and constructing them,” Yick says. “I got the inspiration from watching Harry Potter movies when they go behind the scenes. All the work that goes into the sets is why I wanted to do that in the first place.”
